Abstract

Ovarian cancer is one the most poorly understood and known as the most lethal gynaecological malignancy having lower than 50% survival rate. It is categorised into four different FIGO stages I, II, III and IV. Moreover ovarian cancer diagnosis in different stages has significant difference in survival rate (earlier stage – better prognosis). One of the markers for better prognosis is infiltration of different T-cell subsets into cancer tissue. We adjusted a protocol for immunofluorescent staining and used it to identify different T-cell subsets in ovarian cancer combining it with other staining techniques (Immunohistochemistry and Haematoxylin and eosin staining). For our experiments we have chosen three different markers and performed quadruple staining of specific cells combining CD3, CD8, CD27 and nuclear markers. Eight different cell subtypes were found (four T-cell subtypes and four non T-cell subtypes). Using our adjusted protocol of staining we were able to overlay acquired pictures and see distribution of all T-cell subtypes in ovarian cancer tissue using a few combined techniques. We were able to recognise different T-cell subtypes that can help in prognosis, prediction and further investigation.